Consumed
by thefallensdesires
Summary: Elves are immortal, though they might die by the sharp steel of a sword or wither in the aftermath of a mortal death, they will last through disease until the end of all ages has come to pass and the last light of the earth shall then fade.
1. Chapter 1

They buried him next to his brother. She knew because she was there as the dwarves lowered his body, wrapped in muslin as was the tradition of his people, into the stone crypt built for the purpose. She kept watch in the doorframe of the burial room with few members of her kin who it seemed had admired the dwarves as fighters.  
>The room held little light, drawn in through a singular window cut out of the mountain itself. Thorin was laid to rest here also with the Arkenstone, his burial having occurred the previous day, his crypt lying on a raised platform underneath the window so that the natural light fell onto the stone carving of his face. It was not yet finished. His hands were yet to be carved out of the stone lid to hold his sword, Orcrist. Such fine masonry as the dwarves provided for their fallen kin would take years to finish.<br>It occurred that she had not been to such a burial before. The burials of her parents had been simple. They rested underneath the roots of a great tree planted to mark their passing. As of yet the evils of Mirkwood had not poisoned it.  
>There were candles on iron stands to light the rest of the tomb.<br>She looked up in despair of the cold stone roof. There was no life here. No kind light of the stars would shine again upon the face of Thorin Oakenshield or those of his kin. They were hidden in the dark. Away from light and memory.  
>In the ways of his people they would be remembered in songs. Although such words and music felt silent to her ears as she could not wish to hear them.<br>When it was done her companions had bid her leave but she approached Kili's final bed of rest to pay her goodbye. Such words were un-utter-able and would not come. Instead she kissed his covered forehead and walked away, eyes burning with tears that would not fall. Her arm was caught by a feminine dwarf with fair hair and eyes so bright and painfully recognisable to Tauriel that their very look pierced through to her chest.  
>"You knew my son," whether the tone held surprise or disapproval could not be told, grief clouded it.<br>"I…" words expanded and caught in her throat painfully. She had not spoken in the three weeks since. "Owe him my life."  
>Eyes met and she felt herself scrutinised and observed closely with those pain inducing eyes, the female dwarf nodded and released her grip. Turning she said in a hushed voice, "Farewell and safe return to your people, I expect that we shall not meet one another again."<br>Now asked to leave she found that her feet would not let her go. She may have been rooted to the spot had her companions not taken care to guide her back to her horse, all the way she felt those eyes watching her.

**"Why does that Dwarf stare at you Tauriel?"** The words sounded within her as a distant echo, holding her to the beginning of a well-remembered tale as she was being presented with its end. Lúthien Tinúviel, she cursed and thought: to feel such sorrow over a love never truly born.  
>Theirs had not been the tale of Beren and Lúthien. Men and Elves developed more naturally together. Both were of the same creator, whilst Dwarves had been born of rock underneath the earth. Dwarves were known to be selfish and cruel out of jealous love for their possessions. They hid away from natural light and did not share a love of the stars, or trees or water. Their values were not the same. They were not the same.<br>So she had always thought and had always been told. Little good had it done for her to have been proven otherwise.

**"I saw a fire moon once,"** Words still echoed around inside her head without connection. Her thoughts only had to drift from the present to take her into those moments. To walk among the memories in the stars was a gift achieved only through meditation; she now only had to blink to be cursed with an echo of her grieving heart's obsession. Kili's words stayed within her although their time together had been short. It did not sit well within her logic to understand why his influence held her so strongly. It had not been long. She did not wish to feel it.  
>Trying to understand his death's effect on her was overwhelming. It was not her wish to eat or sleep, only to think and fixate over every moment they had spent together until she felt her mind slip away into those moments. She wanted to make sense of her emotions. There was a pain that she had not felt following the deaths of her parents over the death of the dwarf: perhaps she had been too young when they had passed. It did not seem fair to them for her to feel so different in this newer, and stronger, grief. There was nothing right about this pain.<p>

"Thranduil will be pleased to see you again Tauriel," A companion said and although so intended the statement did not leave her feeling comforted. The thought passed through her that she had not left the mountain for Mirkwood since the battle's outcome; it had been weeks, the burial had been delayed so that their mother could attend.  
>Tauriel rode in silence and could not be tempted to speak. Her companions, she realised bitterly, had come with purpose to retrieve her more than to display an elven respect for dwarves. The return of the gems made of starlight would earn more affection from her kin than the individual acts of valour every dwarf in Thorin Oakenshield's Company had ever displayed. She felt an urge to discard the chest bound to her horse's saddle. It had been a gift from Dain she had not wanted.<br>There would always be a natural bitterness bred between those of dwarven and elven kind. In all of Middle Earth's long history, relations between elves and dwarves had only ever amounted to that of a shared enamour of precious stones and gems. The idea of anything more between two of those kind was inconceivable and yet she had found herself harbouring notions of love.  
>No, she thought – hardly noticing that her horse had already brought her into the depths of Mirkwood forest - not notions.<p>

**"I think you know what it means,"** Came the echo of a voice she had not long known.

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><p><em>AN Leave a review if you'd like, I know that Tauriel and Kili's off-canon pairing isn't to everyone's taste but I'd still like to know what you think. This story will be a short one but I felt that I wanted to write a story of my own imagining regarding what might have happened to Tauriel following the events of the Hobbit. Thank you for your views. _


	2. Chapter 2

"My Lord Thranduil may I present to you the Gems of Ilmarë," Her companion delivered proudly, stooping down gracefully as he held out the chest full of treasure their King had long coveted. It was a well thought and carried notion. Thranduil accepted the chest and touched the brow of his kinsman before bidding him to leave. "As delivered by Tauriel," He acknowledged as the elf guard begrudgingly concluded his audience.  
>The guard in took his breath sharply as he passed her. She noticed not and cared less, it had not been her wish to play emissary. Stood before her king she could think only of their last meeting, and the absence of the body she had then cradled.<br>Indifference wore through in Tauriel's facial expression and masked the weight of the pain she carried in her chest. In relation to her posture she held her usual alert and focused stance as she looked up towards the throne, but there was tiredness about her shoulders and her eyes were bearing a strange weight about their lids. This change about her appearance would not be noticed by those of the many she did not know well.

From his throne Thranduil surveyed her and noticed these changes about her, hardly aware that he was one of two who might: as Captain of the Guard she had not mixed well and less so now would she be liked upon her return. This was not at that moment understood as she had only just then returned to the halls of Mirkwood and had at once been given an audience with him.

"Have you no words for your King?" Thranduil questioned looking once from the gems of starlight towards her. Their beauty was captivating him. In his mind they held memory almost too precious to be distracted with the troubles of his kin.  
>Though through his own losses he understood the weight of the burden she carried – without doubt her love for the dwarf had been real - in contest with his own experiences of love she could not have learnt much in such short time as she had been given.<br>It mattered not, he reminded himself, to try to reason with the delusional mind-set of grief. In regard to Tauriel's loss his role was not to compare but to encourage. Enough time would soon be passed that her faded memories of a brief acquaintance would mean little in comparison to the span of years she was yet to live on the earth. With time her love would fade as his was yet meant to. A few days meant little in comparison to over a thousand lifetimes an elven Queen and King might have together, and so he was sure Tauriel would soon be healed of her heartache.  
>It could have been wise for her to know of these things before she began her recovery but the truest tale behind the importance of the starlit gems was not one he would wish her to know. Thranduil's heart was for his own keeping, even his son had been sent into the wilderness without knowing its depth.<br>Still, unwittingly, burdened by the selfishness of his own grief he could feel concern for Tauriel.  
>She had said nothing in that time.<br>"What say you?" He asked, not daring to believe that she had not heard him or had not wanted to.

"Mine are only words of sorrow and empty meaning; my Lord could not wish to hear them," Her words were a hushed whisper carried to him by a tone bereft of any beauty or music. There was unnatural rust worn into her voice, as if the gift of speech had come at the price of how those of the first born race should sound.  
>He heard as others might not.<p>

"It is not for you to tell what I might wish to hear," His voice was sharp and so he paused. Rather than return his stare in defiance she averted her eyes. Seeing this he continued, and chose to establish a sense of normality rather than comfort; he thought this to be the best way for her to deal with her grief. "It is with thanks that I receive you for the return of our misplaced gems. King Dain seeks to establish friendship with us such as we have not had since the days of plentiful trade when Thror was King under the Mountain. Through this we shall establish strength in preparation for the war I fear is yet to come –" She swayed and he caught her by the arm. This simple act was a surprise to them both for he feared she was not well and she had not been fully aware of the movement.  
>Both stared in silence.<br>For Tauriel the room felt as though it had been given its own movement and within her head was the air that fuelled it.

"You are weary," He accused although his way of speaking was not so intended; it was not natural for an elf to swoon. "And your hands are cold." Though he had never done so before he cradled her hands and then dropped them to dismiss her. It was feeble for her to attempt to stand still. It was his concern that she might fall although he would not hold her.  
>"Rest," Was his command. "So that when you return you are yourself again. I do not like to see my Captain in this state." Without protest she bowed to him before departing. He noted that the movement was unsteady and awkward.<p>

"I shall rest until my lord summons me," Were her faint words of parting.  
>Thranduil accepted this and returned to sit next to his gems. As beautiful as they were their light did not ease the eerie sense of sorrow he now felt within his chamber. There had been plenty of elven blood slain in the battle and Tauriel held not the only heart whose pain echoed within his halls. Left on his throne Thranduil let the lanterns about him go dim as he sat and brooded over the gems in silence, thinking of those who had come to pass and trawling his fingers over the memories now restored to him. It was his bane and torment as well as his pride that had been restored with the return of these jewels. He thought of <em>her<em> and closed his eyes whilst still clasping the gems.

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><p>Her head felt light and she had to remind herself that she had not yet rested. Frustration boiled within her as she walked away from the meeting and then simmered away into nothing as she felt that she ought to have the ability to stand through one of the King's audiences without wanting to collapse out of sheer exhaustion.<br>It was not natural for an elf to need such recovery. The ride from Erebor to Mirkwood had not been long and in the time since the battle had taken place she had done nothing within the encampment in Dale until the time of the burial.  
>In her view, doing nothing included the menial tasks she had set herself in helping the men of Dale clear their city of the remnants of battle and dragon ruin, as the labours had not seemed arduous and the time taken to complete them seemed to have no effect on the speed in which the days passed or were counted.<p>

The dead had been numerous. Time and care had been taken to separate the righteous from the scourge of filth that lay rot to the earth it had inhabited. Pyres had been built for fallen dwarves, men, women and elves. Bonfires and flaming pits had been dug out for the scum.  
>Tauriel had watched every type of race burn and had perhaps wrongfully thought that whatever differences had been forged with life had been stripped away in death. No matter how gruesome the mask of the deceased, the flames of the fires of the dead had eaten all the same.<br>Though Orcs deserved, and would find, no peace in the afterlife, they burned as well as human, elf or dwarf. She felt bitterness in that, though the rivals of good and evil had been dutifully separated and no one of good house or character could claim to have been buried in a mass grave. There was at least some comfort.

She had perhaps seen death enough to last her a life time. Once the labours of death duty had been done and the ashes carried south with the wind, levelling good with evil, as in that powdered state they would not be told apart, Tauriel had sat and waited for the Royal funerals to be done. With arms folded over knees and staring over the landscape as a child might watch ships passing in a harbour she had waited. With back leant across rock viewing over the area where Kili, his brother and uncle had lost their lives she would avoid invitations to join the declining camp of her people or the men of Lake Town and asked only of the dwarves that she might be permitted to stand as Ambassador when the funeral proceedings were begun, this strange request they granted if only out of pity for the elf maid who seemed lost in her way.  
>In the days after the event her eyes held a shocked wideness as she did not sleep and only seemed to watch things which seemed out of the reach of ordinary folk. At that site there were many who wore a similar face to hers. There had been plenty enough grieving for her behaviour to seem justified and within place.<p>

Still, she had not felt as tired then as she did now that she had left the mountainside. Somehow, withdrawing from the state she had been in following the Battle at Erebor seemed to prove more exhausting than the event itself.

On way to her chamber she passed several members of her kin, of those that had been talking before she arrived she might have found their conversation to have fallen silent, had she been taking notice. Many looked away, some dealing with private grieves of their own, others not sure how to approach her now that her affiliation for the dwarves was so well known. It did not bother her because she did not notice it, her chamber called to her with more affection than she had ever known and when she lay upon her bed her eyes closed instantly.

**"Do you think she could have loved me?"  
><strong>  
>Her eyes opened and she looked about the dark of her chamber woken by the strange stirring within her chest. A sudden heat was growing there and its hotness spread until it became a physical lump inside her throat. She could not breathe and had to apply thought to remember how.<br>**"Do you think she could have loved me?"** Replayed once more in her head and she tried to close her eyes as if that would somehow block out the voice's sound. The way he had looked then came to her and she knew that it was not her will to forget. In that moment she had saved him and in his eyes she had seen admiration and love as no one else's eyes had ever offered. His hand had reached for hers and his face had been alight with wonder at the radiance he saw within her, and it was a craving for that look that she had found herself woken by, and in the dark of her chamber she almost imagined she saw him standing there. "Kili" She cried out and the figure slumped forward toward her as a blade ripped through his chest.

He slumped forward and without being able to catch him she woke from another dream screaming, and cursed that this nightmare might never end.

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><p><em>AN Thank you for your reviews as they are much appreciated. I didn't mean for Thranduil to take so much precedent at the beginning but it gave me the idea for another story tying into this one so I hope you'll forgive me. Also I feel that this story might turn into a bit of a ramble of descriptions regarding feelings and events so I thank you for your reading._


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